Pope Wades into Climate Change Debate, Says Mostly Man's Fault

ABOARD THE PAPAL PLANE, Jan 15 (Reuters) - Pope Francis
waded into the global debate about climate change on Thursday,
saying that he believed that man was primarily responsible and
that he hoped this year's Paris conference would take a
courageous stand to protect the environment.

The Pope said his long-awaited encyclical on the environment
was almost finished and that he hoped it would be published in
June, in time provide food for thought ahead of the U.N. climate
meeting Paris in November.

Speaking to reporters on the plane taking him from Sri Lanka
to Manila, he was asked specifically if man was mostly to blame
for climate change.

"I don't know if it is all (man's fault) but the majority
is, for the most part, it is man who continuously slaps down
nature," he said.

The words were his clearest to date on climate change, which
has sparked worldwide debate and even divided conservative and
liberal Catholics, particularly in the United States.

"We have, in a sense, lorded it over nature, over Sister
Earth, over Mother Earth," said Francis, who since his election
in 2013 has made many appeals for the protection of the
environment.

"I think man has gone too far," he said. "Thank God that
today there are voices that are speaking out about this."

Last month, about 190 nations agreed the building blocks of
a new-style global deal due in 2015 to combat climate change
amid warnings that far tougher action will be needed to limit
increases in global temperatures.

Under the deal reached in Lima, governments will submit
national plans for reining in greenhouse gas emissions by an
informal deadline of March 31, 2015 to form the basis of a
global agreement due at a summit in Paris at the end of the
year.

He faulted the Peru conference for not doing enough about
climate change.

"The Peru meeting was nothing much, it disappointed me. I
think there was a lack of courage. They stopped at a certain
point. Let's hope the delegates in Paris will be more courageous
and move forward with this," he said.
(Reporting by Philip Pullella; Editing by Jeremy Laurence)